ceremonies, frequent prayers in the early morning with the face directed to the rising sun, oft repeated washings and cleansings, diligent application to agriculture and other peaceful occupations, abstaining from the use of flesh and wine, from trade and every warlike pursuit, from slavery and taking of oaths, perhaps also abstinence from marriage in the higher orders, were the main conditions of membership in their association. The Sabbath was observed with great strictness, but sacrifices of blood were abolished, and all anointing with oil was regarded as polluting. They still, however, maintained connection with Judaism by sending gifts to the temple. So far the order may fairly be regarded, as it is by Ritschl, as a spiritualizing exaggeration of the Mosaic idea of the priestly character that had independently grown up on Jewish soil, and indeed especially as an attempt to realize the calling set forth in Exod. xix. 5, 6, and repudiated in Exod. xx. 19, 20, unto all Israelites to be a spiritual priesthood. But when, on the other hand, the Essenes, according to Josephus, considered the body as a prison in which the soul falling from its ethereal existence is to be confined until freed from its fetters by death it returns again to heaven, this can scarcely be explained as originating from any other than a heathen source, especially from the widely spread influences of Neo-Pythagoreanism (§ 24). Lucius (1881) derives the name and seeks their origin from the Asidæans, Chasidim, or Pious, in 1 Macc. ii. 42; vii. 13; and 2 Macc. xiv. 6. Very striking too is Hilgenfeld’s carefully weighed and ably sustained theory (_Ketzergesch._, pp. 87-149), that their descent is to be traced from the Kenite Rechabites (Jer. xxxv.; Judg. i. 16), and their name from the city Gerasa, west of the Dead Sea, called in Josephus also Essa, where the Rechabites, abandoning their tent life, formed a settlement. In the time of Josephus the Essenes numbered about four thousand. In consequence of the Jewish war, which brought distress upon them, as well as upon the Christians, they were led into friendly relations with Christianity; but even when adopting the Christian doctrines, they still carried with them many of their earlier tenets (§ 28, 2, 3).[3] § 9. SAMARITANISM.